Suicide rates among children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 20 increased by 18 percent in 2004, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Suicide is the fourth-leading cause of death for that age group and was the only cause of death to increase significantly from 2003 to 2004 after more than a decade of decline. The majority of the jump occurred in older teenagers ages 15 to 19, increasing from 1,737 to 1,985 during that time. An analysis of the data appears in the February issue of Pediatrics.
A summary of the “Annual Summary of Vital Statistics: 2005" is posted by the journal Pediatrics.
